


The End of the Game

by pyromanicofthesea



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fix-It-Fic, Multi, but there will be ship-esque moments, fix-it-fic for Infinity War and beyond, my dear friend this is not a happy story, not a feel good adventure, not a ship-centered story, rating will change in later chapters, steve x bucky themes, tags will be updated throughout the story, the angst is real, thor x bruce themes, tony x pepper themes, tony x stephen themes, wanda x natasha themes, wanda x vision themes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 21:29:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18396713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyromanicofthesea/pseuds/pyromanicofthesea
Summary: This is how I think Endgame should go. Essentially, I'm taking all the bs IW handed out and using it to make a more satisfying story while attempting to correct the disservices in IW. I make no promises that this will be any better, but I will try.In the aftermath of the Snap, what's left of Avengers & Co. try to find Thanos, get the gauntlet, and bring back the rest of the gone, even if they have to pry the gauntlet from Thanos's fat, cold hand.It is recommended to watch Infinity War and then directly after, begin reading this, as this takes place the moment IW hits curtains-closed.





	The End of the Game

Dust and ash was all he could smell. Smell and taste and feel. He felt as if he was going to lose his stomach. The world was spinning, fading to blurry and back to clear.  
“Oh God.” The words slipped from his lips before he could stop them as he collapsed to the ground beside the corpse of the sentient AI. No, no Vision was more than that. Was. Past tense. Now, now he is just another corpse on a battlefield littered with corpses and ashes and nothingness. The same nothingness that was burrowing its roots into Steve's chest. Nothingness and emptiness and loss. It was just like on the train. No, it was worse this time. Worse than the train, worse than having to go home without-  
“We need to regroup. We need to find out how many we've-” Steve could hear Natasha talking, hear the leader in her coming forth and taking charge while he was still working through his shock. For a moment, he found himself missing the war, only for the fact that back then he knew who the enemy was, knew they could bleed and die. He knew the enemy back then, and he still had his best friend by his side. He still had-  
“Hey Cap, I know this is a lot right now but I'm going to need you to get up,” Natasha's voice cut through the thoughts that were trying to drown out the world around him. Steve looked up at her when he felt the hand on his shoulder. It was the touch that brought him back to Earth, demanding his attention more than any sound. He could drown out sounds, he spent many nights drowning out the sounds of bombs in the distance.  
“Who else is unaccounted for?” Steve asked as he stood. Standing was the most difficult thing he could do in that moment. Every piece of him just wanted to lay down and stay.  
“Sam.” Steve felt his stomach turning again, ice replacing the blood in his veins. “Scott. We haven't heard anything from him. He could still be-”  
“No, no false hope. We have to look at this objectively and rationally. If we can't locate them, we have to assume they're gone.” Natasha wasn't looking up as she spoke. They all knew she was right, but no one wanted to entertain the thought that more of their friends - more of their _families_ \- were dead.  
“We should bury him,” Rhodey said, nodding to Vision’s corpse. There was a moment of silence, and unspoken agreement amongst the group, before Bruce inside the Hulkbuster stepped forward and began to dig into the ground near Vision’s corpse with his one remaining arm. The robotic suit lost balance, dropping to its knees just as the others helped dig what was soon to become Vision’s gravesite.

The headstone was a log, stabbed into the ground with the combined strength of Thor and Steve. Surrounding the hand-dug grave was the surviving group from the battle against Thanos in that forest. They all stood in silence, a vigil for the loss of Vision. A vigil for the loss of everyone. Half of the planet, half of the universe, gone.  
Rhodes stepped away to make a call, only to return looking more empty inside than before. Steve looked to him expectantly, wanting to know who else he’s lost in the instant between battle and Hell.  
“I called Tony,” he began, and Steve could feel the cold, crushing hand of hopelessness wrap itself around his being. “There was no answer. The call wouldn’t even go through.” Steve nodded, letting the information process. One more friend in the ground then. But it wasn’t even that, because there would be no body, almost as if they had never existed. They did exist, though, they all did. They existed in Steve’s heart, and in the hearts of everyone who had met them. Tony had done a lot of shit, but that didn’t stop Steve from still caring about him, even if that care was in the form of distant hopes of wellness and not in direct contact.  
Natasha is the next person to pull out their phone, pressing a button and turning to leave, phone already back up to her ear. She stepped away, but Steve could hear an urgent ‘hello?’ just before she was out of hearing distance.  
“I did not think I would ever say this, but there is nothing I would not give for this to be one of Loki’s tricks,” Thor said, half to himself. There was a long pause, stiff and heavy before anything else was said. “There must be a way to reverse this.”  
“Thor’s right,” Rocket said, stepping forward to stand relatively in the middle of the group. “There’s no way things go to shit so easily. We need to find Thanos, and blow his damn head off.”  
“What we need to do, is go back to the Palace and get an estimate of how many forces we have left,” Natasha said, stepping back into the group. She looked haunted, hollow, as if she had seen a ghost while she was making her call. She turned to address Steve directly. “The UN won’t take any of this kindly. They might step up their game in terms of locating us.” It didn’t matter. Not now. Hiding wasn’t the mission anymore.  
“Let’s go back to the Palace. We can make a plan there.”

Planning wasn’t exactly what ended up happening. On the trek back, the group found Okoye, less stone-faced than normal. From her, they learned that T’Challa was one of the disappeared. She welcomed them into the Palace, thanking them for the assistance they gave, and then went to locate Shuri. As the group walked across the field, seeing bodies and ashes littering the ground, it was beginning to become too much for everyone. Too much death, too much loss, too much not enough.  
Steve broke away from the group as everyone went off to make their calls and complete their own personal missions. He leaned up against a corner wall, and was sliding down to the floor by the time the tears started. Hot and heavy on his cheeks, Steve Rogers cried for everyone they had lost today. For Bucky, and Sam, and Tony, and half of the entire universe. It was overwhelming, the amount of loss everyone had faced. The tears became ugly sobs, snot running down from his nose as he cried into his knees, wrapped up like a ball, as if he was trying to hide from everything that had happened. He felt empty, and exhausted, and he just wanted to sleep. He wanted to hear Bucky laugh, to feel him nudge his shoulder and tell him that there would be time for tears when it’s all over. The thought of Bucky brought more tears, steady drips and drops and streams to dampen where his knees pressed into his pants.  
Eventually, Steve was so emotionally exhausted that the tears stopped. He wiped his nose on his sleeve, grimacing at the blood and dirt already on it. Aliens. He stared off into space, looking at the wall opposite of him and looking at nothing at all in the same instance. With a sigh, he pushed off the ground and made his way to a guest room.  
“I guess this was the end of the line, huh Buck,” Steve muttered as he laid down on the bed, curled up slightly on his side. “I really wish you were here to knock some sense into me right now. The little guy from Brooklyn is about to get into a fight with the pond’s meanest fish again. Or, is thinking about it at least. I’d love to hear you tell me how much of a bad idea this is. I’d love to hear you say that you’ll have my back regardless. You were always protecting me back then.” Steve was quiet for a moment as he shut his eyes tight. Something, some irrational part of his mind, hoped that when he opened them, Bucky would be sitting at the bedside, teasing him about being so upset, only to hug him and say something Bucky-equese and make him smile.  
When he opened his eyes, the room was just as empty as before. Steve sighed, and felt himself drop even lower. “You didn’t deserve to go through that, Bucky.” His voice was starting to crack as sobs that wouldn’t come out were poking through. “I should’ve visited you more. None of the missions I was on were worth losing time with you. I miss you already. I wish you were here. I sound like a widow, don’t I?” Steve choked back a laughing sob, tears threatening to fall again. “It should’ve been me disappearing out there. You deserved your new life, Buck. You didn’t deserve this. Never this. I’m going to get you back, Bucky. I lost you once, and I thought it was for good. I’m not losing you for good again.”

Bruce thought to call Pepper, half to tell her that Tony was unable to be found and half to check if there was even a Pepper to contact. The call went unanswered, and Bruce couldn’t help but swear. He needed someone who knew how to operate the Iron Man suits. Rhodes came to mind, and so he went to find where the man had gone off to.  
Natasha made secure call after secure call, trying to see just how many agents were still alive. Hills, no answer. Fury, no answer. By the time she had reached Coulson’s number, she was hesitating on hitting call. He answered, and she swore relief under her breath. She gave a status report, a very rough body count, just like when she was working under SHIELD. They both had a moment of silence when the Director was included in her list of the unaccounted for.  
Rocket tried to call through his communicator, but the rest of his team were out of range. He sighed, and then he threw the communicator against the wall, furious that it wouldn’t do better. For all he knew, all of his friends were dead. He spoke to himself in a sad, bitter, barked laugh.  
“Looks like I really am captain, by default.”

**Author's Note:**

> It's been quite a handful of months since I last posted a story, huh! School is wild.  
> This has been sitting in my docs drafts since Infinity War first hit theatres, and I had some pretty strong motivation at first. Then I got busy and this faded into the background. After seeing Captain Marvel, I felt re-energized to actually write out this thought instead of just think about it and then leave it in my head. This is most likely going to be pretty long (about the size of Rocky Beginnings, if any of my Gorillaz readers are here), so bear with me. No schedule for this one, I'll just post as I finish chapters. Which,, at first might be slow, since I am currently abroad for school.  
> While this will end with Stucky as the main set, this won't be a heavily ship-centered story, and multiple ships will be explored throughout the story. While the rating will, eventually, change into an M rating, the focus of this story is the story, not the sex. If you came for some angst and some smut, honestly you might want to look elsewhere (I still appreciate the reads though).
> 
> Have questions? Thoughts? Just want to talk to the author? I'm [smokedoutcoldstar](https://smokedoutcoldstar.tumblr.com) on Tumblr.  
> Enjoyed the story? Please consider [buying me a coffee?](https://ko-fi.com/pyromanic)


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